Eliminating waste in software projects: Effective knowledge management by using web based collaboration technology (PDF)

Inhaltsangabe:Abstract:
Today, in a typical software project, people do not document at all or invest a large amount of time to create documentation, which at the end proves to be not useful or undiscoverable for others.
The goal of documentation is to conserve knowledge and make this knowledge accessible for others, thereby easing collaboration. However, this goal is rarely achieved. The whole process of producing documentation and searching for valuable information is highly ineffective and means a lot of wasted time.
Often, in a shorthand approach, Word, Exel and Powerpoint files are used for documentation. Among these documents, information is not interconnected. As a consequence relevant information is hard to find. Full text searches take a long time and deliver poor results. Imagine searching all documents of a file server of a medium cooperation using the Windows Explorer search functionality. The search will probably run several hours and hardly deliver any useful results. If any information is found, it is hard to tell if the document is up to date, who changed the document last and what was changed. There is no automated mechanism to inform interested people about updates on any document or information.
Another approach is using proprietary knowledge management technology and collaboration software, like knowledge repositories. In the late nineties companies started to implement knowledge management strategies with heavy use of technology. The problem herein is that people have to be trained to use the knowledge management technology, learn and understand the underlying principles and additionally the handling of specific software. If the knowledge management technology is complex, it imposes an entry barrier. Using knowledge management technology will then be burden for a software development team. Since the pressure in a software development is high, it is unlikely that a team will be willing to invest much time for learning the technology and hence the pay off will never be realized. Furthermore if the basic principles and processes of a chosen technological approach turn out to be inadequate for a specific situation there is often no chance to adapt the knowledge management technology quickly. This finally can lead to a situation that the technology is not used at all, because at the end it is easier for workers to simply ask someone else they know.
Aim of this Book: This book will show if and how web technology can be used in [...]